Lisa Hoffman

For nearly three decades Lisa Hoffman was kept busy honoring the vow she and her husband, Academy Award-winning actor Dustin Hoffman, made when they married: to keep their family together no matter where his work took him. With six kids that meant a whole lot of packing and unpacking. Hoffman strove to perfect a technique that would take as little time as possible, in the process becoming so obsessed with transporting her toiletries that she dreamt up the concept for The Lisa Hoffman Night & Day 24-Hour Skincare Collection. Literally.

Nine years ago, Hoffman had a dream that she was going away for ten days and packed ten individual skincare packages, each containing one day’s worth of products. The next morning, she drew the packages. Her family and friends thought it was an inspired idea. Six years later when her youngest child left for college, Hoffman hired a branding consultant who helped her launch her skincare line.

Hoffman has since expanded to offer a spa collection and a fragrance line. All are available at high-end department stores and boutiques and on Hoffman’s Web site. Hoffman is still dreaming up new ideas. She’s got a few great packing tips as well.

What we learned from Lisa: “Learn as you go. The Web is very lucrative but never forget that most grass roots brand awareness comes from retail distributors.”

Friends Make for Good Consumer Research

“I showed my drawings to my friends and inevitably they would come back to me later and say, ‘I’m packing to go away for the weekend. I wish I had what you drew right now!’ I found myself saying the same thing when I was packing.”

Launch What You Love

“I’m a skincare junkie. But for many, many years I’ve been using skincare products from all around the world without being satisfied. So I started creating my own concoctions from those products. The chemists that I worked with loved me because after mixing things like moisturizer and collagen and heating them my microwave, I had done much of the work for them already.”

Entrepreneurs Need Experts

“I started meeting with lawyers and designing the packaging. I also met with a brand building consultant. She more than anyone else really got the concept, saw the potential, and encouraged me to move ahead and give it my best shot. She introduced me to chemists, designers, and operational consultants.”

What Women Want

“The philosophy behind the 24 Hour Packette came from me. But my consultant did have me meet with a consumer research company. We went across the U.S. to various cities and tested the Packette concept with consumers ages 25 and up to see how they responded to it. We learned a lot from that. We learned how confused women are.”